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Introduction

From The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer now newly imprinted designed and printed by William Morris, Kelmscott Press, 1896

“Of
making many books there is no end,” said the preacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes. This is true to a far greater degree today than it was in Biblical times. The printed and bound volume of today is the result of centuries of development in many arts.

Development of the Book

The earliest records were scratched on bark or leather or chiseled on stone, wood, or other durable materials (seewriting). The Babylonians impressed characters on clay tablets and then baked them hard. The laws of Solon were carved on wooden tablets and set up on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The Twelve Tables of Roman law were engraved on wood.

From Wax Tablets to Parchment

For brief writings the Greeks and the Romans used small wax tablets. These were made of small boards with narrow raised frames at the edges. A thin coating of wax, commonly black, was laid over the sunken part of the wood. Letters were scratched with a stylus through the black wax so that the light-colored wood showed in the strokes. The tablets could be bound together with thongs or metal rings through holes in their edges. Such a group of tablets was called in Latin a codex.

Long documents and books were written by hand on sheets of papyrus (seepaper). These were glued together by the side margins to form a roll 5 to 12 inches wide and 15 to 40 feet long, with writing on only one side. The Romans called such a roll volumen, from which the word volume is derived. Usually the papyrus was rolled around a brightly painted, gilded stick, or umbilicus, with knobs at both ends. To the top of the roll was attached a slip of vellum giving the title of the work and the author’s name. Each roll was kept in a cylindrical parchment case. In reading, a person held the roll in his right hand and unrolled it column by column. Meanwhile, with his left hand he rolled up on another roller the part he had read. When the reader reached the end of the roll, he rewound the volume tightly upon the umbilicus by holding the roll beneath his chin and turning with both hands. Many papyrus rolls have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. The dry air of Egypt, together with the cedar oil in which the papyrus was steeped, had so preserved them that the writing was still clear.

The forerunner of parchment as a writing material was leather. Egyptian sources refer to documents written on leather as early as 2450 bc, and a fragmentary Egyptian leather roll of the 24th century bc survives today; but leather was rarely used because papyrus was plentiful. The Hebrews also used leather for books. The spectacular discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s turned up collections of both leather and papyrus rolls that had been stored in earthen jars in caves along the Dead Sea for centuries.

Although papyrus was the material used for most ancient books, special copies were often written on vellum or parchment. Vellum was made from calfskin. Parchment, a coarser material, was made from the skins of sheep and goats. The skins were not tanned but were prepared by careful washing and then covered with lime to loosen the hair. After the hair was removed, each skin was stretched on a frame, scraped, dusted with sifted chalk, and polished with pumice. Vellum is probably the longest-lasting and the most beautiful material ever used for books, but it is very expensive. It is also hard to handle on a printing press, and so it is little used today except for special copies of fine books.

Parchment and vellum were used as early as the 5th century bc. From the beginning of the Christian era these materials gradually displaced papyrus until by the middle of the 5th century the usual material for a book, or codex, was vellum or parchment sheets. The sheets were cut to uniform size and bound together at one side with leather thongs.

Books in the Middle Ages

For nearly a thousand years after the fall of Rome all books were laboriously written out by hand. The pens were made from a reed or a quill from the wing of a large bird. These pens were cut with a broad end or nib, shaped like a chisel, unlike the fine-pointed pens now in use. The full width of the pen was used when it was drawn downward, producing a wide stroke. Only the fine edge of the nib was used when it was drawn crosswise. This produced a hairline stroke. The broad-nibbed pen thus “shaded” the letters automatically as the writer traced their curves and angles. The various forms of modern type letters still reflect the thick and thin strokes which the broad-nibbed pen gave them, for type letters were derived from the old manuscript letters.

The ink used for writing on vellum, and later on paper, was either lampblack ink, which had already been used for papyrus, or a new ink made from iron filings and oak bark, or gallnuts, boiled in vinegar. Gum arabic was added to bind the black particles to the vellum. Before writing, the scribe ruled the page, marking off the margins and drawing guidelines. These lines were made with a pointed metal stylus, with a sharpened piece of lead, or with a pen and diluted ink. The writing desk was placed at a sharp angle, so that the leaf to be written on was in front of the scribe in an almost vertical position. Above the writing desk was usually another, smaller desk to hold the book from which the text was to be copied.

Most medieval manuscripts were the work of monks. In some monasteries the scribes worked at separate desks placed in a large room called the scriptorium. At times they wrote from dictation, but more often, when a book was wanted in a hurry, the task of writing it was parceled out among a number of scribes. In other monasteries, especially in the early Middle Ages, each monk worked in his own cell.

Styles in Handwriting

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The form of the letters used for manuscript books in Latin changed from century to century and from country to country. In the Roman period there were at least five distinct styles of handwriting. First came the capital letters. These were divided into two forms, the square capitals and the rustic capitals. The square capitals were used for more stately inscriptions and manuscripts. The rustic capitals, somewhat freer and easier to make, were used for less formal manuscripts and inscriptions. From the capitals, later called majuscules, the Romans developed a cursive handwriting, characterized by the roundness of the letters, which was used for correspondence, accounts, notes, and scribblings of all sorts. This style of writing is called uncial (from a Latin word meaning “inch-high”), perhaps because its letters were unusually large. From the uncial forms the printers of the 15th century developed the early typeface called “black letter,” “Old English,” or “text.” Uncial writing also developed a difference between tall and short letters; from it the first minuscule, or lowercase, alphabet was gradually developed.

Early medieval scribes combined uncial letters with the careless letters used in writing on wax tablets, which had strokes running above and below the regular line of letters. These new combinations were called half uncials. Instead of being, like the uncial writing, mostly capitals with a few small letters, half-uncial writing was based on small letters, with only an occasional large letter.

Next there developed from the half uncials a kind of writing which is the ancestor of present-day small, or lowercase, letters. It is the Carolingian minuscule, the small letter used in the time of Charlemagne. The Carolingian writing was a partial return to the letter forms of the early Roman manuscripts. Its beauty and simplicity caused it to spread throughout France, and it soon became the dominant style throughout all of Europe except Ireland. About the 10th century it was introduced into England, where it was used at first only for Latin texts, thus establishing a fashion that continued even after the introduction of printing. Latin classics, for example, were always printed in “roman” type, whereas law books were always printed in black letter.

In the late Middle Ages, beginning about the 12th century, there was a new development of national handwritings, all derived from the Carolingian but easily distinguished from one another. This was a period of popularity for large books, adorned with initials and borders in bold designs. The strokes of the letters were made wider. In Italy, southern France, and Spain the letter forms remained round. In England, northern France, and the Low Countries they took the pointed form known as angular Gothic. German script, although in the northern group, held a place by itself and was generally less graceful in character than any of the others. This Gothic small letter, which developed slowly during several centuries, became the lowercase black letter of the early printers.

Finally, in the 15th century, came the “humanistic” writing, a rounded hand which was an attempted revival of the old Carolingian minuscule. It was a logical result of the revival of learning, for the new vogue of the classic writings of antiquity brought back the handwriting in which those works were found. These 15th-century copies of the Carolingian hand became the models of modern roman typefaces. Humanistic writing, like all other period forms, included both a formal book hand and a more flowing form. The latter became the common handwriting of all countries which had used the humanistic roman letter for books. All italic types are based on this form of cursive, or flowing, letter. (See alsoalphabet.)

How Medieval Books Were Made

The medieval book, or codex, consisted of leaves bound up in order as are printed books. The common practice was to take four pieces of vellum and fold them so that each piece formed two leaves. These pieces were then fitted one inside another to form a group of eight leaves, called a section. As many sections as were needed for the entire book were sent to the scribe, who took them apart, wrote the text a page at a time, and perhaps put in the red headings and initial letters. Unlike papyrus, which was so thin that only one side could be used, vellum was thick enough to allow writing on both sides.

After being read and corrected, the sections of the book were sent to the binder, who sewed the sections through the back fold with cords. Wooden covers slightly larger than the leaves were made, and the ends of the sewing cords were laced through holes in the boards to bind together the sections and the covers. Next a large piece of leather was glued over the back of the sections and the wooden sides. Sometimes this cover was decorated with patterns pressed into the leather with heated metal stamps. Because vellum wrinkles when it gets very dry, strips of leather with clasps were attached to the front edges of the boards so that the vellum leaves might be kept flat under pressure and no dust might get between them. If the book was large, metal cornerpieces with knobs were often added to keep the leather cover from touching the desk and being marred.

The British Library (Public Domain)

Many medieval books, especially those made for use in church services, have beautiful decorations and illustrations painted in them in bright colors and gold. The decoration of a book with initial letters, borders in the margins of the pages, and little pictures called miniatures is known as illumination. The colors were prepared by the illuminator himself from colored earths and other substances. These were finely ground and washed, then mixed with gum so that the particles of color would hold fast to the vellum. Gold was beaten into very thin sheets and glued to the page or was ground into a fine powder, mixed with gum and oil, and made into a paint.

By far the greater number of medieval books were Bibles, missals (books containing the service for the celebration of Mass), sermons, and other religious writings. Next in importance were books of law, medicine, natural history, and astrology; the works of Greek and Roman authors; and chronicles and romances. Most medieval books are in Latin, though some of the later ones are in English, French, and the other European languages.

Among the most famous of all manuscript books are several copies of the writings of the Roman poet Vergil, now in the Vatican Apostolic Library. Probably made during the 3rd century ad, they are the earliest books in codex form that have survived to the present time. Another famous manuscript book is the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest complete manuscript text of the New Testament in Greek.

It was discovered by a Biblical scholar at a monastery near Mount Sinai in a basket of rubbish about to be burned. An early manuscript noted for its beautiful writing and fine interlaced decorations is the Book of Kells. This is a copy of the four Gospels made in Ireland during the 8th century.

Manuscripts of Three Periods

The history of manuscript books may be divided into three periods. In the first and longest, ending about the year 1200, the making of books was carried on by monks. In the second period, which covered roughly 200 years, the work of the monks was supplemented by literary activity in the universities, especially those at Bologna and Padua, Italy; Paris, France; and Oxford and Cambridge, England. In the third period, beginning about the year 1400, bookmaking and bookselling existed in the cities on a commercial basis. Venice and Florence, Italy, and Paris were the chief centers of production, and the annual fair in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, was the market where almost any book then in existence could be found.

In the first period the literature of ancient Greece and Rome was saved largely through the efforts of two early churchmen, Cassiodorus and St. Benedict. Cassiodorus was court secretary and official spokesman for the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, and through his efforts the court at Ravenna, Italy, became the center of literary activity. Cassiodorus was the first to insist that monks include intellectual labor in their duties, and he himself set an example by writing a history of the Roman Catholic church and a vast amount of other work, both original and compiled.

St. Benedict specified that a certain number of hours were to be spent each day in the scriptorium. Work as a scribe was accepted in place of an equal number of hours of outdoor labor. For centuries the Benedictines were the most powerful of the monastic orders, and it is scarcely possible to exaggerate their influence in preserving the works of the Greek and Roman authors as well as those of St. Augustine, Gregory, Jerome, and other Church Fathers. (See alsoBible; Gregory, Popes; monks and monasticism.)

The earliest surviving manuscript known to be the work of a European monk dates from the year 517, but even before this date much copying had been done in the monasteries of northern Africa and the Near East. Most of the Greek texts that found their way into Europe at the time of the Renaissance came from those monastic libraries.

Bookmaking in Universities

About 1200 there was a change in the intellectual life of Europe, which was henceforth directed by the universities. Alongside the production of books by monks came the work of lay scribes who were recognized as university officials. The first known use of the word stationer (stationarius) was at Bologna, about 1250. The stationers kept in stock a sufficient number of authorized copies of texts required in university courses and rented these to students and teachers. When students died or left the university, their books were turned over to the stationers; to take books away was a crime.

Gradually, as the universities grew in size, it became the practice for the stationers to sell their texts instead of renting them, and with this change came a change in name from stationer to librarian (librarius). The early book dealers were really librarians as the word is understood today, since they loaned books (for a fee) and also permitted students to examine texts without removing them from the shop.

The university regulations specified that the booksellers must not modify texts in any way, and penalties were provided for renting or selling texts in any form other than that prescribed by the faculty. These booksellers were considered professional men, not ordinary tradesmen. In Paris they constituted a guild within the university.

In England and the Low Countries the book trade was not so closely tied to the universities and had a larger influence on the general education of the people than in Italy or France. As early as 1400 there was an organized trade in both scholarly and popular books in the Low Country cities Ghent, Antwerp, and Bruges. In Germany the 15th-century scribes gave much time to textbooks, almanacs, and books on astrology, cooking, and other popular subjects.

The cost of books was greatly reduced by the introduction of paper. The use of paper began to spread about the 11th century, though it was probably known in Europe at least 300 years earlier.

Before the invention of movable type, small religious books were printed in Europe from engraved blocks of wood. Each block was the size of the page and consisted usually of a picture with a small amount of descriptive lettering beneath it. These books are known as block books and the method by which they were printed is called xylography as contrasted with typography, or printing from movable type. (See alsoprinting; type and typography.)

Early Printing Looked Like Writing

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The first printers sought to make their product appear as nearly as possible like manuscripts. The style of type, the use of abbreviations and special signs, the use of woodcut illustrations in Bibles and prayer books, all followed the practices of the scribes. Blank spaces were left for large initial letters, to be drawn and illuminated by scribes after the books were printed. When woodcuts were used in printed books, they were often hand colored.

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However, as presses multiplied books by the thousand, certain changes in their physical appearance were introduced. Some of these changes were made necessary by the conditions of machine manufacture. It was simple for a scribe to use several colors. By merely wiping his pen, he could shift from one ink to another. For the printer every additional color made his work at the press more difficult—he had to make a separate impression for each color. The introduction of printing, therefore, usually meant a reduction of the gay colors of manuscript books to simple black on white.

Other changes in the form of the book were introduced for the convenience of booksellers and readers. In the manuscript days books were costly. No single person could own more than a few of them. These he could tell apart at a glance by their general appearance. There was no need for title pages and none existed. Usually a manuscript began with the name of the author and his subject at the head of the opening paragraph. Sometimes it ended with the name of the scribe and of the place and the date when he finished it. The preliminary statement of author and subject (the incipit) was occasionally omitted; the scribe’s record (the colophon), frequently. In some of the earliest printed books, space is left for a penwritten incipit. Many of them have no colophon to show where, when, and by whom the book was printed. Gradually, however, with the increase of books, the need for these distinctive labels became more and more pressing. Finally, for the convenience of booksellers and their customers, both items were printed plainly on the first leaf of the book. This is the origin of the modern title page. Other features were added from time to time as aids to the reader. Rival publishers endeavored by continuous improvements to win favor for their products. A series of books selected from successive decades will show an evolution from the bare text to title page, introduction, table of contents, footnotes, maps, illustrations, tabular arrangement, commentary, index, and errata.

By 1550 the book in its present form had appeared. It begins with a half title page, giving only a short or condensed title. This is followed by the title page, which gives the full title, the name of the author, the name of the publisher and the city in which his business is located, and the date of publication. On the reverse of the title page may be placed the copyright notice and the name of the printer, if the printer and publisher are not the same. Then may follow a page for the dedication, after which often comes a preface or foreword, stating the plan and purpose of the book. Books of an informational character have an index following the text. A bibliographical description of a book notes all these features in brief form.

Book Sizes

Formerly, the sizes of books were indicated by an abbreviation, such as 8vo (for octavo) or 12mo (called twelvemo, from duodecimo). When all paper was made by hand, the sheets were all about the same size. Hence, the number of times the sheet was folded to make the pages of the book indicated the size of the book closely enough. If a full sheet was folded to make two leaves of four pages, it was said to be in-folio; folded into four leaves, it was in-quarto, or simply quarto, written as 4to; if eight leaves, it was 8vo; and so on to 64mo and 128mo.

After the introduction of papermaking machines, however, paper sizes were no longer uniform. Then the size of a book was often described in terms of the size of paper that was used. Thus the size of a folio might be elephant, imperial, atlas, royal, demy, medium, crown, or foolscap. It was not always possible to tell on inspection whether a book was a small folio or a large quarto, a small 8vo or a small 12mo. A sheet of imperial paper was 21 × 31, while demy, so named because it was half of the imperial, was 21 × 16; thus an imperial quarto, printed on imperial paper and folded twice, was almost identical in size with a folio printed on demy size. Although some publishers still use the old names, the tendency is to state sizes either in inches or in centimeters.

Bookbinding—Putting a Book in Its Covers

The processes of binding a book by hand are much the same as they were 500 years ago. Bookbinding began when the codex started to replace the roll. The earliest elaborately decorated bookbindings were those produced for use on church altars. Those that survive are often magnificent examples of the jeweler’s, goldsmith’s, ivory carver’s, or embroiderer’s arts.

The necessary equipment includes a sewing frame to hold the folded sheets while the sections are being sewed to the cords or tapes that run across the back. Also needed are two presses. The first holds the book while the back is rounded by gentle hammer taps. The second holds it while the covers are put on. In hand binding, unlike machine or case binding, the sewing cords are fastened directly to the stiff board sides before the cloth or leather covering is put on.

Decorated Covers

For decorating and lettering the cover of a book, small brass stamps set in wooden handles are used. A wheel called a fillet makes plain lines. Wider wheels, called rolls, with various patterns on the edges, are used for producing and imprinting detailed ornamental bands or borders. In gilding the edges of a book the first step is usually to spread a thick red stain. After this is dry and carefully brushed, the binder applies a glair, made of whites of eggs beaten up with water or vinegar. Then very thin gold leaf is laid on. When the glair is quite dry and the gold has set, the edge is burnished by rubbing with a smooth piece of stone or leather. Sometimes landscapes are painted on the fore edge in such a way that they are only visible when the edges are slightly fanned.

Although the processes of hand binding have remained the same for centuries, there have been great changes in the materials used and in the style of decoration. The earliest bindings, even for small books, were usually made of oak boards. Sometimes the boards were covered with leather or vellum; these are called fullbound.

Sometimes the boards were left exposed, only enough of the leather or vellum back being fastened to the edges to hold the sides; these are called halfbound. The ornamentation of the back and sides became a special art, called finishing.

Use of Paper and Cloth

As the production of books increased and the size of the volumes decreased, bookbinders began to substitute paperboard for oak. About the beginning of the 19th century glazed calico was first tried as a cover for the paperboards, and about 1830 cotton cloth was introduced in England.

The use of cloth created new possibilities in decorative binding. Cloth is more easily handled than leather or vellum and is easily marked by stamps or dies. It permits binding large editions in identical designs at low cost. In the United States and Great Britain, the boards of most new books are covered with cloth, paper, or a combination of the two. In continental Europe many books are issued in flexible paper covers. Permanent bindings are put on later.

As early as the 4th century many manuscript volumes were elaborately bound. Most of these, however, were later destroyed for the gold, silver, gems, or carved ivory with which they were ornamented.

At first the printing and binding of books centered in monasteries and church schools. Then it was transferred to universities and later to commercial establishments. By the end of the 15th century a few bindings were stamped with the names or devices of printers or binders. Some early printers, notably Anton Koberger at Nuremberg, Germany, developed styles of binding still associated with their names. Most binding styles are named either after a binder or after a famous collector or patron.

Gilded Decoration

A great variety of decoration was made possible by the introduction of gilding, about the last quarter of the 15th century. In Germany blind stamping (that is, without gilding) remained the fashion even into the 1700s. In Italy, in France, and in some English binderies, leather stamped in gilt became the material for fine bindings. In France, through nearly three centuries, the art of binding received magnificent support from kings, queens, nobles, and clergy. Their favorite books have since become the pride of museums, libraries, and private collectors. Jean Grolier was one of the greatest book collectors of the 1500s. Most of his books were bound in leather covered with geometric patterns inlaid with contrasting bits of leather or colored enamels. Maioli bindings, made for Thomas Mahieu, secretary to Catherine de’ Medici, and the English bindings made for Sir Thomas Wotton are similar to the Grolier books. The royal binders Nicolas and Clovis Ève, the unknown binder known as Le Gascon, and later Antoine Michel Padeloup and Nicolas-Denis Derôme each developed definite styles of decoration. In mechanical finish the work of these early binders is often inferior to that of the best workmanship of today. In design it has not been surpassed.

In England in the 1600s, Samuel and Charles Mearne developed the “cottage” style of decoration. This took its name from a rooflike pattern used in almost every binding. After the Mearnes there was no important English binder until Roger Payne, one of the truly great binders. Payne combined small patterns with pleasing blank spaces. Payne’s designs were more or less followed in the 1800s by Charles Lewis, Charles Kalthoeber, Francis Bedford, and later on a greater commercial scale by the firms of Robert Riviere and Joseph Zaehnsdorf. John Edwards of Halifax developed an original style, usually called Etruscan from the patterns he used. Edwards made a specialty of a transparent vellum. The underside of the vellum was decorated with landscapes or allegorical painting. He excelled in fore-edge painting. His work is now highly prized.

Modern Designs

Design in bookbinding received a new inspiration toward the end of the 1800s. This came at the same time as the artistic revival in printing for which William Morris was responsible. Morris’ friend Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson designed bindings which combined geometric figures with conventional patterns. Cobden-Sanderson was one of the few hand binders who himself did the finishing and all the sewing and forwarding. Cobden-Sanderson’s influence was great, through his own work and through his pupils. Among them were Douglas Cockerell and Sarah T. Prideaux. In the United States most of the outstanding binders, such as William Matthews and Alfred de Sauty, were men who were born and trained abroad. They brought to this country the best European traditions and standards of workmanship.

With the turn of the 20th century the note of modernism appeared in binding design as in other forms of decorative art. Design in binding follows the general trend of other arts. Modernism in binding is comparable to the same trend in furniture or in architecture. Bookbinding is one of the fine arts. Like all arts it reflects the spirit of its time.

Book Manufacturing Today

The process begins with the decision of a publisher to issue a book. After the manuscript of the book has been prepared, a book designer, in consultation with editors and printers, develops specifications for the book—its size and shape, the typefaces in which it is to be set, and the treatment of tables and illustrations. The printer and the binder then prepare a dummy, or mock-up, of the book, showing the paper to be used, the thickness and binding of the volume, and—ordinarily—some specimen printed pages.

Typesetting and Printing

After a book manuscript is edited, the next step is to set it in type. Most books are typeset using phototypesetting machines. The earliest models of these machines worked by taking a separate picture of each letter in its proper place. Newer models use computer devices to store the proper shape of each character as digital information. This information is used to operate a cathode-ray tube (CRT), or a laser, which forms the characters as needed. These more advanced phototypesetters are also known as digital typesetters.

Phototypesetting machines use computer technology to make typesetting much faster and simpler than the older hot metal techniques of Linotype and Monotype machines (seetype and typography). Before actually setting the type, the phototypesetter rearranges the lines electronically in order to produce justified copy (copy that is even at both margins). When a word must be split, the machine indicates this to the operator, who must tell the machine where to split the word. Larger, more modern typesetting machines are capable of storing entire dictionaries in their memories. This permits the machine to automatically split words at the proper places and to check for spelling errors.

There are four kinds of phototypesetters: photo/optic, photo/scan, digital/CRT/scan, and laser/scan. The first two employ film grids that contain pictures of all the characters of a type font. In the photo/optic typesetters, the film grid is positioned so that a light beam passes through the correct character and is reflected onto photosensitive paper or film. Lenses and mirrors can enlarge or reduce the size of the letter.

In the faster photo/scan typesetters, the film grid is scanned electronically to form an image on a small CRT, which produces the image that is reflected onto the paper or film. Since the characters are generated electronically, they can be modified easily to make them slanted, condensed, or heavier, as well as larger or smaller.

Digital/CRT/scan typesetters and laser/scan typesetters do not use film grids. Instead, the typefaces are stored digitally in a computer memory. In the digital/CRT/scan typesetters, the digital information is used to generate a picture on a CRT of each character as it is needed. This picture is then used much as in the photo/scan typesetters. The laser/scan typesetter uses the digital information to control a laser, which scans the photosensitive paper or film directly, exposing only those parts of the paper necessary to form the words on the page. Grid-type phototypesetting machines can set up to 50 lines per minute, while digital typesetting machines can set up to 3,000 lines.

Although copy is usually typed into a phototypesetter much as it would be typed on a typewriter, modern computers and word processors also can be used to transfer already recorded information directly for typesetting. This permits greater efficiency because the text need be typed only once. Optical character readers (OCR’s) have been developed that can read text typewritten on ordinary paper. They store this information in memory or transmit it to word processors or to phototypesetters.

Once the book’s text has been typeset, it must be proofread for errors. Most of the modern typesetting machines permit easy editing and corrections of the text on video-display screens. Some machines can display the text in precisely the form in which it will appear on the final printed page.

After the text has been corrected, the type and any illustrations are arranged in page format. These pages are photographed to make the printing plates. Some phototypesetters can arrange the text into pages automatically, allowing editors to review them on a screen before the type is actually set. Other phototypesetters can also make the printing plates directly from the information stored in memory.

Electronic engravers are often used in making the printing plates for illustrations. Color illustrations pose an added problem. Since they are usually printed as four separate colors, one atop the other, four separate printing plates must be made. This process has been much simplified by the development of electronic color scanners that can separate the colors and make the plates in one operation.

Most books are now printed by a process known as photolithography, more commonly called offset printing. Many books are still printed by the older letterpress process or the gravure process. Sheetfed presses, which print one sheet of paper at a time, have been largely replaced by web presses, which use rolls of paper. The web-press operation permits faster production by combining printing and folding into a single, continuous operation. (See alsolithography; printing.)

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Although the pages follow one another in numerical order in a completed book, they are not printed that way. Each printing plate contains a number of pages, so positioned that they will fall in proper order when the unit of pages, or signature, is folded. Signatures may contain any multiple of four pages; common signature sizes are 16, 32, or 64 pages. Most presses print both sides of the paper at once and deliver folded signatures, ready for the bindery.

Elements of Modern Bookbinding

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Essentially, the steps in edition binding—or case binding, as the mechanized process is called—are the same as those in hand binding. The signatures of the book are put in proper order, fastened together, and enclosed in a protective cover. In assembling the book, those operations which take place before the signatures, or body of the book, are joined into a unit are called sheetwork; those which take place afterward are called forwarding.

Steps in sheetwork include folding the signatures if they were not folded on the press, arranging them in order, and fastening them together. Signatures are put in order on a gathering machine, or gathering line. Piles of successive signatures are arranged in order in bins beside a conveyor belt. A mechanical arm takes a first signature from its pile and places it on the belt. The belt carries the signature to the next position, where another arm places a second signature on top of it. The process continues until, at the end of the line, a complete set of all the signatures in the book has been assembled in the correct order.

Next the signatures are fastened together. Three processes are in common use. Probably a majority of all books, and certainly most general, or trade, books, are flexible sewn. The process is also called Smyth sewing, after David McConnell Smyth, inventor of the first flexible-sewing machine.

In flexible sewing, each signature is sewn through its binding fold (the fold at the back, or spine, of the book) and to the adjacent signatures. Flexible-sewn books open easily and the pages lie flat. After the signatures are sewn together, the endpapers, which help hold the book in its cover, are tipped to the first and last signatures with thin lines of glue applied near the binding fold.

The book then passes to the nipper-gluer, in which the backbone is compressed to reduce the bulk created by the sewing thread and a coat of glue is applied to the spine to further bind the signatures together. Some books require overall smashing, instead of just backbone nipping, to reduce excess bulk.

Now a unit, the signatures are trimmed to final size by heavy knives. Then, in the rounder-backer, the backbone of the book is rounded to help the book hold its shape, and the joint, or shoulder, in which the cover boards will hinge is formed. If desired, gilding—usually of artificial gold—or stain is applied to the top of the book.

Then the super, or crash, is applied to the spine of the book. This strip of open-mesh fabric, easily penetrated by glue, extends beyond the edges of the backbone. Later it is glued to the cover boards beneath the endpapers, helping to hold the book within its covers. A paper liner is applied over the super, and decorative headbands are glued to the spine. The book is ready for its cover.

Book covers, or cases, are prepared on casemaking machines in which the boards and case liner are glued to the covering cloth (case cloth, or case side). Decoration—the book’s title, author, and publisher, together with any desired illustration—may be applied to the case side either by printing, before the case is assembled, or by stamping—usually in artificial gold foil—after assembly.

The book and its cover are brought together at the casing-in machine. Here glue is applied to the endpapers, and the super and endpapers are glued to the boards and sealed under heat and pressure. Other machines wrap the book’s dust jacket around it and, if desired, put the book into an individual carton and address it for mailing.

The development of fast-drying inks and fast-setting glues, largely since the 1950s, has brought to edition binding a speed and efficiency undreamed of in earlier years. Formerly, long waiting periods between binding steps were necessary to permit adhesives to cure. Today, a book may proceed from a stack of loose signatures to a fully bound volume, wrapped and addressed to its buyer, in a matter of minutes. For long-run books—volumes of which many thousands are printed—highly automated production lines may be built. In these, books are mechanically bound with little or no human attention.

Side-Sewing and Adhesive Binding

Although there are several means of reinforcing a flexible-sewn book so that it can withstand harder than ordinary usage, most books intended for heavy use—such as textbooks and encyclopedias—are fastened by the process of side-sewing or sidestitching or both. (In bindery terms, “sew” indicates the use of thread; “stitch,” the use of wire.) In side-sewing and sidestitching the gathered signatures are simply sewn straight through, from one side of the book to the other, near the binding fold. When a book is side-sewn, the endpapers are tipped to narrow strips of drill cloth. These strips are sewn together with the signatures. A sidesewn book ordinarily has no super, since the function of the super is performed by the drill strips.

Adhesive binding, which is becoming more and more common, was made possible by the development of fast-setting glues which retain flexibility even when dry. In this process the gathered signatures are pressed together between jaws and the binding folds are cut off, exposing an edge of each leaf. The edge is roughened, and a coating of glue is applied to hold the leaves together. If an adhesive-bound book is to be cased in, endpapers are tipped to its spine and a super is applied. If it is to be softbound, or paperback, the same glue that holds the leaves together attaches the paper cover to the spine, and the book is completed by trimming pages and cover at once. After sewing or gluing the remaining steps in casing-in side-sewn or adhesive-bound books parallel those required in casing-in flexible-sewn books.

The History and Principles of Book Collecting

From The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century, by Rev. Richard Morris, 1874

The
collecting of books for personal libraries, as distinguished from the formation of libraries for reading or study, is a modern development. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, there were a few collectors, but usually these were scholars or rich men who bought books for the use of the scholars and students who frequented their houses.

The great early English and French collectors, such as Grolier and Jacques Auguste de Thou in France and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop Matthew Parker, and Sir Robert Cotton in England, assembled collections of the books of their times that they considered worthy of preservation. Had it not been for such collectors, many of these books would have perished. Hundreds of them, now of little value for their texts, were bound in the choicest leather by the best of the early bookbinders. In England almost all the large collections formed before the 18th century were bequeathed to colleges and universities. The great royal library, formed by the country’s kings and queens, was given by George II to the British Museum in 1759, when it opened.

Collectors of Today

By this time a class of collectors described as bibliomaniacs or bibliophiles had developed. The bibliophile, or lover of books, has a sentimental interest in his collection. Some collectors specialize in association books. Books of this kind may have been presented by the author to a friend or may have belonged to a famous man or woman. A book not worth ten cents as a text may fetch several hundred dollars at an auction if it has on its title page the autograph of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. Many collectors also buy books for the beauty of the printing or binding. Most collectors today make a hobby of first editions. Although later editions often include additions and corrections that improve the text, the first edition is presumably the form in which the author approved his creation and is thus closer to him. Because of the great demand for first editions, even the recently published works of well-known contemporary writers sometimes bring astonishingly high prices.

The first editions of many books acquired a sentimental interest because they were once actually in the hands of the authors. Laurence Sterne, for example, signed his name on the flyleaves of many of the original volumes of Tristram Shandy. Or again, the first edition may have an interest such as attaches to Henry David Thoreau’s first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The publisher was able to sell only a few copies of this book and finally shipped all the unsold copies to Thoreau at Concord, Mass. Thoreau stacked them in his room. On Oct. 28, 1853, he wrote in his journal: “I have now a library of nearly 900 volumes, over 700 of which I wrote myself. Is it not well that the author should behold the fruits of his labor? My works are piled up on one side of my chamber half as high as my head.” Just after Thoreau’s death, another publisher took all these unsold copies and had the old title pages torn out and new ones pasted in. Thus every copy with the new second edition title page was really a first edition and had been a part of Thoreau’s “library” for nine years.

The one safe rule for book collectors is to collect the books they like. No one collector can hope to complete even a small field. Many of the great rarities are in permanent public collections and will not again be offered for sale. Many other rarities are so costly that only very wealthy people can hope to acquire them. Yet any collector, even one of modest means, can assemble a collection that reflects his own interests and personality. For the beginner there are many books of helpful hints written by collectors, book dealers, and librarians. Catalogs of reliable booksellers, as well as those of auction houses in the larger cities, give much useful information. Each year, records of auction sales in the United States and in England are published, giving the prices at which the more important books were sold. There are numerous collectors’ magazines, and there is even a published list of collectors in the United States and Canada, with their addresses.

Bookplates

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-ppmsca-15508)

The easiest way to indicate ownership of a book is to write one’s name on the flyleaf. Many famous people not only wrote their names but also annotated their books with comments on what the authors said. Charles Lamb, for instance, scribbled his comments not only in his own books but also in books he borrowed. Lamb’s friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote voluminous notes in many of the books he read; many of these notes were really essays in themselves, and some of them have been published. Collectors of rare books, however, usually consider writing by anyone other than a famous person as lessening the value of a book. An artistic bookplate, on the contrary, may actually be regarded as an added attraction that enhances the value of a book.

The earliest known bookplate was used in a Carthusian monastery in Germany about 1480. During the next 50 years German bookplates reached a high level of artistic excellence. They were designed by many of the foremost artists of the time, including Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, and Hans Holbein. The earliest French bookplates came into use about 1530, but for a century afterward the greatest French book collectors preferred to identify their books by having their arms or other devices stamped on the leather covers.

The earliest known American bookplate, from colonial New England, is a plain printed label with the owner’s name, “John Cotton, his book,” and the date, 1674. Although the vast majority of famous bookplates merely show the owners’ arms, many are pictorial, showing portraits of the owners, library interiors, piles of books, landscapes, and even allegories and mythological figures (seeheraldry).

Bookplates may be made by a great variety of processes. The cheapest method is to print labels. These are suitable for any kind of book. Printing plates for such labels may be prepared by any of the photomechanical processes, such as zinc etching. For finer—and more expensive—plates the design may be engraved by hand on steel or etched in copper.

Bookselling and Book Publishing

The first systematized production and distribution of books developed in Egypt, principally in Alexandria, in about the 2nd century bc. There was no organized book trade in ancient Greece, though there is evidence that some of its people collected books at great expense.

By the time of the Roman Empire, the publication of books was a well-organized business that centered on Rome and had trade connections with Athens, Alexandria, and all other parts of the empire, including distant Britain. The Roman book trade depended upon the excellent systems of communication and transportation built up by the emperors and was supported by a wealthy, cultured leisure class. In the declining years of the Roman Empire—years of civil war and barbarian invasions—the Roman book trade came to a virtual standstill. It disappeared with the fall of Rome in ad 476.

When printing was introduced in the latter half of the 15th century, printers were for the most part their own publishers and distributors. Their clients were churches, monastic libraries, priests, schoolmasters, and students. The printers who prospered found a market for more books than they themselves could print. Toward the end of the 15th century, therefore, books began to appear with statements that they were printed by one person at the expense of another.

By 1650 a well-defined class of publishers existed at Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig, two German cities that had succeeded the Italian cities Venice and Rome as the main centers of the publishing trade. Publishers in Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig, where great annual trade fairs were held, served as booksellers for printers in all parts of Europe. About the same time the custom of exchanging books between publishers came into existence. In order to increase his sales, one publisher would take part of another publisher’s output in exchange for an equal value of his own books.

The early publishers had no problem in dealing with authors, since most of the books they printed were works of the ancient Greeks and Romans or of the Church Fathers. Some were their own editors and did their own translations.

Instead of paying an author in money, many publishers gave him books. Sometimes an author received a stated number of copies of his own book, which he would either sell for cash or reserve for the patron to whom the book had been dedicated.

Book Publishing in America

As in the Old World, early book publishing in America owed much of its support to a religious movement. Many of the English Puritans who migrated to North America had been educated in the highest European standards of the day. In fact, by 1645 their settlements had a greater proportion of educated men than any comparable communities in Europe. The high demand for editions of the Bible, as well as of other religious literature, stimulated book printing.

The first press was brought to Cambridge, Mass., by the Rev. Jose Glover in 1638. Two years later it was used to print the first colonial “best seller,” The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, popularly known as the Bay Psalm Book (seeAmerican literature). Presses had been established in all of the 13 colonies by 1763. However, they were used primarily to print newspapers, textbooks, pamphlets, and bills of lading. There were a number of public and private libraries in the colonies at that time, but most of the books in these collections were imported from England.

Publishing had become a fairly well-developed industry by the second decade of the 19th century, with New York City and Philadelphia, Pa., as its capitals. Nevertheless, publishers continued to function primarily as printers and booksellers. They preferred to issue the works of English authors rather than those of American writers because the former were more salable and, in the absence of international copyright laws, could be published without the payment of royalties. Two exceptions to this rule were the American authors James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving, both popular before the Civil War.

During the late 19th century, publishing houses failed to grow as rapidly as other businesses. For the most part, publishers selected manuscripts on the basis of their supposed literary merit rather than of their possible popular appeal. In addition, all the major publishers adhered to a “courtesy of the trade” principle which reserved all future rights to a book to its first publisher. As a result of this principle, publishing seemed more a gentlemanly profession than a commercial occupation.

During the economic recessions of the 1890s, however, publishers were forced to turn to banks and investment companies for necessary operating capital. In return these financial institutions insisted upon greater efficiency and higher profits. To meet these demands, the publishing industry became more competitive, aggressively seeking out popular authors, running more elaborate promotional and advertising campaigns, and cutting prices.

With an eye to profits, book publishers designed lists with wider appeal, augmenting new titles with low-priced clothbound reprints of classics and previous best sellers. Paperbacks, which had enjoyed a brief popularity in the mid-1800s, began to reappear in the 1940s and were immediately successful. Distribution became more sophisticated, notably through book clubs that offered new volumes to subscribers at reduced prices.

World War II and the subsequent boom in education stimulated a great demand for both textbooks and books for leisure reading. As the publishing industry prospered, it began to evolve from a fairly large number of relatively small businesses into a smaller number of larger corporations. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, merging and “going public,” or issuing stock on the market, became common practices among book publishers. By the late 1960s, the diversified publishing house with many divisions, each producing a different kind of book, had come to dominate the industry.

The Publishing Process

A book goes through a number of phases between the time it is written and the time it appears in printed form. The process begins with the acquisition of a manuscript by the publisher. In some instances the publisher commissions a writer to produce the manuscript or has it prepared by members of his own staff. In others manuscripts are submitted to him or are sought out by employees of his firm. Manuscripts are often brought to the publisher’s attention by literary agents. The literary agent, who is familiar with many publishing houses, is hired by the writer to sell his manuscript and to represent him in financial negotiations.

The manuscript is first turned over to a house editor who reads it to determine whether the book is suitable for publication. If the manuscript passes this initial test, it is passed on to other editors or to outside experts for further evaluation.

Once a manuscript is accepted, it is assigned to an editor who offers suggestions for changes in style and content. This editor works with the author until the manuscript is in a form that is mutually acceptable. Another editor, the copy editor, makes whatever changes are necessary to obtain stylistic consistency and an adherence to standard usage throughout the book. The edited manuscript is forwarded to the production department, which determines the size of the book and works with an artist or designer to establish the basic design of the contents and cover, the format of illustrations, and the kind of type in which the book will be printed. The book is then printed and bound.

The procedure to be followed in writing and publishing a book varies with the type of book. At present, books are divided into five major categories.

Trade books

are books of general interest. They include all fiction and such nonfiction as biographies and art, music, and how-to-do-it books. An important type of trade book is the children’s book, which produces almost half of the sales revenue of this category. Trade books are customarily written by an outside author under contract to a publishing house.

Textbooks

include all books intended primarily for instruction. Such books are usually commissioned from an authority in the field after the publisher decides the subject to be covered and the curriculum level at which it is to be treated. In some instances, textbooks are written by the publisher’s employees with advice from outside consultants.

Scholarly books

encompass an array of books by scholars and scientists. Technical and professional books are included. Most scholarly books are produced by university presses.

Subscription books

consist primarily of reference works. These are ordinarily written by the staff of the publishing house with assistance from outside authorities. Usually issued in multivolume sets, subscription books are generally sold directly by the publisher.

Religious books

include books on the philosophy of religion; books on the history, tenets, and practices of religious denominations; and books containing religious instruction. They are produced by specialized religious publishing houses and are sold by both religious bookstores and general bookstores all over the world.

James R. McDonald and Jesse M. Zachary

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